I’ve been stressed out with Eric leaving soon. The beauty of meeting lies in knowing it cannot last. There was excitement waiting to see the kids after traveling for 3 weeks. And now I need to face with his departure. Tina will be with me for another few days, so saying goodbye to Eric is not as dramatic. I’m getting more emotional as I get older; I treasure my time with loved ones more.

Arles has the biggest outdoors market in Provence every Saturday. The whole main street (Rue Victor Hugo?) is closed. There was booths of clothings and housewares, fresh produce, fromagerie, charcuterie, cooked foods, … We had pastilla with chicken and some grounded nuts, the best since Morocco. There was also a couple of food trucks selling Vietnamese Nem, and us being viet foodies or just viets craving for viet foods, each of us ordered a Nem.

Most shops and even some restaurants close on Sunday. I need to remember to use Sunday as travel day. The drive to Gard is about 1 hour north of Arles. The road was lined with trees and Tina had to capture the photo as Eric drove.

Pont du Gard is a Roman aqueduct bridge, built in the 1st century AD to carry water from Uzes to Nîmes. It is A UNESCO World Heritage site, and the tallest Roman bridge still standing. Standing at the place that was built some 2000 years ago, where millions of people have walked on, makes me feel so insignificant. Millions of people who have walked here, died. And so will I one day.

The only thing about Uzes that I remember is some of us spent mucho dinero on clothes there. And we all had to be nice to Tina because she is the one carrying all the clothes home.

Monday, we drove to Aix-en-Provence. Aix is a big town with a population of some 200,000. We walked on the Cours Mirabeau, which is not as touristy as Las Ramblas in Barcelona, stopped by some bookstores …

Aix is too big for me… so we made a stop in Salon-de-Provence, which I really like. Salon is where Nostradamus lived and died. He was born in nearby Saint Remy, but his life and work was produced here in Salon.

Tuesday, Nov 28. Our airBnB rental ended. Eric walked to the train station. He’s train-ing to Marseille, then Montparnasse. The rest of us got a ride from the host to the train station to go to Carcassonne. We arrived the train station, and yup, saw Eric one more time :))

No tears. Well, they were wearing glasses, so I can’t say for sure.